Migration

[Ropyro]

Hi everyone,

I have a home cloudron server which currently has two apps. This server has two user accounts -- mine and my friends. The server volume is located on a raid drive that is connected via USB. I want to decommission the server and migrate to a more powerful machine I have. I created a backup file following these instructions:

https://docs.cloudron.io/backups/#move-cloudron-to-another-server

I was planning to continue to follow the documentation to complete the migration, but got a little nervous I'd hose something, so I'm hoping for a little clarity and reassurance before committing to the move.

Now that I have the backup file, is it just a matter of shutting down the old server, plugging the RAID drive into a USB port on the new server, installing Cloudron, and restoring Cloudron using the .json file?

I feel like there should be more to it than this, and I'm missing something. The .json file doesn't seem to have much info in it. I don't understand how it could restore both accounts, for example, since I see no info on that. Also, how will Cloudron know where to look for the volume?

I've used Cloudron for years, but have never tried a migration, and there's a lot to the documentation that doesn't seem to apply to my simple setup. Having trouble weeding out what I don't need.

Any clarity would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[humptydumpty]

The json only has the backup info not your apps/data. I’ve never tried backing up to the file system as i feel it’s too risky for me. I use backblaze s3 and that simplifies the migration.

[Ropyro]

Thanks @humptydumpty -- I'm only using NextCloud and Trilium at the moment. My setup is so simple, it may just be easier to pull all the files down and re-upload them to a new server with newly installed apps.

[joseph]

Now that I have the backup file, is it just a matter of shutting down the old server, plugging the RAID drive into a USB port on the new server, installing Cloudron, and restoring Cloudron using the .json file?

All that is required is the json file and the backups to be available in the new server. Not sure what you mean by "server volume", but I assume this means the rootfs (root filesystem, which has your OS etc) ? If so, no, that is not what needs to be attached to the new server. What needs to be attached to the new server is the disk that contains your backups. Of course, if your backups are stored in the same disk as this raid drive, then it will work.

As you found, the json is simply holding the backup meta data and not the data itself.

• On the new server, go to restore view and upload this json
• Check the path of the backups. Depending on how you attach the USB the mount point may vary. For example, maybe it was /var/backups in the old server. But in the new server this is maybe /mnt/my-usb-raid . If so, just adjust the path manually and keep the backup filename part.

That should be it, you are not missing anything

[Ropyro]

Hi @joseph --

Thanks for the reply. By "server volume" I was referring to my local file system (the RAID drive connected via USB) that I use for my Cloudron main data storage. It's seperate from my rootfs. It's sperated on a small RAID drive to avoid data loss in case my main hard drive dies. Is that what you're referring to as backups? Your response is hitting the exact point of my confusion, so I really appreciate it. It may just come down to a misunderstanding of terminolgy on my part

[joseph]

@Ropyro said in Migration:

By "server volume" I was referring to my local file system (the RAID drive connected via USB) that I use for my Cloudron main data storage

If I understand your steup: you have add the RAID drive as a Cloudron Volume ? And then you move the data directory of all apps to that Volume via https://docs.cloudron.io/apps/#data-directory . Did I get this right ?

Or did you symlink appsdata like https://docs.cloudron.io/storage/#default-data-directory ?

[Ropyro]

@joseph Yes, the RAID drive is a Cloudron Volume. At some point, I decided it was a bad idea to have all my data on the dame drive as the OS/Cloudron, so I created a Cloudron volume on my RAID drive and then for both Nexcloud and Trilium I set the data directory to be that raid volume. Cloudron moved everything to the raid drive at that point. I assume I can just attach the raid drive to my new machine and both Nextcloud and Trilium on the new machine to that drive?

[joseph]

@Ropyro the backup based migration does not involve the server volume / RAID drive. It involves the drive where the backups are stored. In the Backups view, what have you configured as the backup destination ?

[Ropyro]

@joseph Ah -- didn't know that. Backups are also pointed to the raid drive.

[joseph]

@Ropyro so you just need to have the backup drive (raid in this case) attached to the new server and migration should work. as a future note, the backup drive should ideally be separate from the data drive. You don't want everything failing together if the drive fails!

[Ropyro]

@joseph Thanks for the tip. My new machine has dual hard drives, so maybe I can set one to be the backup drive, then the USB RAID to be the main file system?

[nebulon]

I guess first try to get the restore working and then it may make sense to think of some backup location which is not in the same physical location or at least not connected to the same device (some power malfunction could brick it all at once, or otherwise a software bug wiping disks unexpectedly)